Just came across this article on radical saving. I don't look at it as that radical, and have been working toward some of them already, even though we can afford not to. My car should sell this week, and that leaves me with sharing Amy's car, walking to work, taking the train to the airport, and riding my bike. The savings translates to about $600/month or $7200/year, plus we burn less gas and I exercise more. I like this change.
Downsizing makes sense for us to some extent; it's expensive to heat and we could likely get something for about 1/3 less money that suits our needs. the house is in a great part of town and has appreciated nicely, but we chose to sell Amy's house and settle here for a while. I doubt we're going to change our minds about that, at least not this year.
We're not going to rent a room out, no. We're both past the roommate phase and would choose to downsize before doing something like that again.
Dropping the cell phone is tough. I dropped the Blackberry/Treo addiction and am happy without it. I now pay about half of what I used to monthly, and don't miss much by not having the easy email. In fact, I'd say my life is more ordered, calmer now that I don't check that thing so often. We have a home phone, and I have a work phone, but the bottom line is I'm a CEO and need that anytime accessibility. I might adopt a lower rate plan.
We dropped cable several months ago. We still watch TV, but only have a few broadcast stations and the quality isn't great. We watch movies from Netflix, about an even mix of documentaries and really great movies. I've seen so few in the past 10 years that there's plenty to see.
These changes have been more about lifestyle and system choices, and the savings are a side benefit. A nice one, though--we'll do good things with the cash savings. I expect it should total more than $10,000 this year.
Any other tips?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Radical Savings
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3 comments:
It's a good article, though I think it plays better for those without kids.
If I didn't need to be available for my kids, I would've ditched the second car and cell phone a long time ago. Once they're up and out, I hope to.
Here's a weird way we're actually saving a little bit more: doing LESS grocery shopping. While it's not cheaper than staying home and eating, we've recently come to the conclusion that because our schedules are so hectic (making eating out often a requirement), there's a fair amount of grocery foods in our house that go to waste. So we're taking a harder look at when we'll be home to actually eat the groceries. Moreover, we actually have better family time when we do eat out rather than than grab-n-go techniques that sometimes become part of the home meal.
In our case, down-sizing our home isn't feasible and we'd like more space, but you DO lose a lot in closing costs and the market isn't so hot right now, so we're looking at a finished basement.
Fitness-wise, there's always ways to save, if you're willing to wait. I picked up a nice bicycle worth about $800 on Craigslist a year ago for $125... it just took time to wait for one the right size. A year later and it's still riding great.
+1 on the groceries. we've done a menu plan and weekly shopping run every week but only this year started to mark the recipes we used to cook with notes to adjust the quantities and portions to reduce waste.
there's a second-order effect, for me at least: drilling down in detail like that in any area of life brings with it a satisfaction of doing something truly new. it is empowering and gets me excited to make change happen elsewhere. it is the antidote to habit and procrastination. -t
..used to do our weekly shopping runs monthly but then decided since they were weekly to do them every week.
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